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Leon Burnett. University of Essex. Interacting with the Translation Profession: A Report. Ian Kemble (Portsmouth University) Questionnaire to 25 universities 23 responses Bath Symposium (9 September 2006). Working hypothesis.
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Leon Burnett University of Essex
Interacting with the Translation Profession: A Report • Ian Kemble (Portsmouth University) • Questionnaire to 25 universities • 23 responses • Bath Symposium (9 September 2006)
Working hypothesis • “The working hypothesis was that the responses to the questionnaire would show that those courses which were more vocationally-orientated would enjoy levels of interaction with the translation profession which were higher and more varied than those of more theoretically-orientated courses.”
Spectrum • 1----------- 2 ----------- 3 ----------- 4--------------- 5 ----------- 6 ---------- 7 ---------- 8 ---------- 9 • theoretically balanced vocationally • orientated between orientated theory & practice • Spectrum depicting the range of course types
Results of survey • “a total of 6 institutions (24%) declared themselves to be more theoretically orientated, situating themselves between nodes 2 and 4; 7 institutions (28%) declared their courses to be balanced between theory and practice and a total of 12 institutions (48%) described their courses as more vocationally orientated, placing themselves between nodes 6 and 9.”
Results of survey • 50% vocationally orientated • 25% balanced between theory and practice • 25% theoretically orientated
Hidden assumption 1 • 25% balanced between theory and practice [= vocation] • Implicit equation between ‘practice’ and ‘vocation’ • www.port.ac.uk/translationreport2006.
Hidden assumption 2 • Spectrum --- continuity • Divide --- partition • Metaphors condition our way of looking at the world.
Warwick Birmingham West of England (UWE) Edinburgh University College London (UCL) East Anglia (UEA) Theoretically-orientateduniversities
Susan Bassnett • Translation Studies (1980) • Comparative Literature (1993) • Literary Translation?
Critique of reference books • “The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker”, in Translation and Literature (Vol. 8, 120-30), 1999. • “On the Basis of Current Knowledge: A Review of Recent Reference Works on Translation”, in New Comparison (No. 32, 124-38), 2001. • A review of Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications by Jeremy Munday (Routledge: London and New York, 2001), in Wasafiri (No. 40, 55-57), 2003. • The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English. Volume 4: 1790-1900, in Translation and Literature (forthcoming 2007).
Reference books (by weight) • Dictionary of Translation Studies, 400g. • The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, 1.05kg. • Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 1.18kg. • Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English(2 vols.), 5.35kg.
The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English • 5 volumes (Vols. 3 & 4 published) • Aim is “to present for the first time a critical and historical overview of the development of this art or craft in the English-speaking world” • General Editors’ Foreword(italics added)
The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English • “we use the word ‘literary’ in the broad old sense which it has still not completely lost, to encompass something like the full range of non-technical work which has made up the reading of the literate public” • General Editors’ Foreword • Compare Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English • Literary Translation as its own master.
Literary Translation • Art or craft? • Theory and practice • New divide: transmitting culture/receiving culture • Autonomous work in the recipient culture • The ‘wordface’, not the ‘workplace’.